Friday, February 6, 2009

ARRS and ACR = BFF

ARRS + ACR heart.png
The American Roentgen Ray Society (ARRS) and the American College of Radiology (ACR) announced today their intent to be BFF:
The governing boards of the American College of Radiology (ACR) and the American Roentgen Ray Society (ARRS) have reached an agreement in principle for a strategic integration that would leverage the unique strengths of each organization and provide the potential for enhanced service to radiologists and medical physicists seeking continuing medical education, quality and safety programs and a strong voice in Washington.
Non-radiologists could probably care less about this announcement.  However, as a member of both of these fine groups, I wish them well on their betrothal. Combining the educational prowess of the ARRS with the political clout of the ACR could make for a mighty group indeed.

My main concern is what they will call this new "strategic integration". At the very least, I'm hoping for an acronym that doesn't suck too badly. I just can't think of any way to pronounce "ARRS-ACR" that doesn't sound like a synonym for glutealgia.

In hopes of finding a more pleasing arrangement of these letters, I helpfully fed "ARRSACR" into an internet anagram server. Alas, that server was stumped by this letter combo. However, when I fed in "The ARRS and ACR", I got a lot more hits (4537). I didn't bother to read them all, but did like "Rad Rat Ranches", "Rather Rad Scan" and "Drear Trashcan". Hopefully, this merger will make good financial sense, and not turn out to be "Errant Rad Cash".

Of course, there is a certain amount of redundancy between their two maiden names. Maybe they could get by with just one "American" between them. Likewise "Radiology" sort of implies "Roentgen Ray" and "College" is a synonym for "Society". What we're looking for here, is some new name that means:
Big American Radiology Society
While they probably won't pick this exact name, they could sure do a lot worse acronym-wise than BARS.

I guess we'll just have to wait until July 1 to learn just which group got dibs on naming rights in their pre-nuptial agreement.

No comments: